I had a consuming ambition to possess a miller's thumb. I believe I have never since wanted anything more desperately than I wante...d my right thumb to be flattened as my father's had become, during his earlier years of a miller's life.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

I really don't think this war will end soon. We are completely aware of the difficulties, no food or fuel, the danger, but we want... to be stronger than all that. With each child, we are fighting back with our love of life.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

European society has always been divided into classes in a way that American society never has been. A European writer considers h...imself to be part of an old and honorable tradition--of intellectual activity, of letters--and his choice of a vocation does not cause him any uneasy wonder as to whether or not it will cost him all his friends. But this tradition does not exist in America.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

When a man of sense happens to be in that disagreeable situation in which he is obliged to ask himself more than once, What shall ...I do? he will answer himself, Nothing. When his reason points out to him no good way, he will stop short, and wait for light. A little busy mind runs on at all events, must be doing; and, like a blind horse, fears no dangers, because he sees none. Il faut scavoir s'ennuïer.*LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

The reputation of generosity is to be purchased pretty cheap; it does not depend so much upon a man's general expense, as it does ...upon his giving handsomely where it is proper to give at all. A man, for instance, who should give a servant four shillings, would pass for covetous, while he who gave him a crown, would be reckoned generous; so that the difference of those two opposite characters, turns upon one shilling.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »